The present invention relates to a management system, a managing method and a control program, and specifically relates to a management system in which a managing apparatus and a managed apparatus can communicate with each other in either a bilateral communication mode or a unilateral communication mode, a managing method to be employed for the management system concerned and a control program to be executed in the managing apparatus and the managed apparatus concerned.
In recent years, there have been increasingly proliferated in the market, a copier, a MFP (Multi Function Peripheral), etc., each of which is provided with a copy function, a facsimile function, a printer function, a scanner function, etc., (hereinafter, referred to as an image forming apparatus as a general term for each of them). Since an operating ratio of such the image forming apparatus is relatively high and it is necessary for the user to periodically apply maintenance and inspection processing to such the image forming apparatus due to a wide variety of consumable parts used for such the image forming apparatus, the image forming apparatus, serving as the managed apparatus, is coupled to the managing apparatus through a certain communication network, so that the managing apparatus acquires control information, such as a number of paper sheets to be printed, a usage frequency, a maintenance history, a history of operations for changing various kinds of parts, etc., from the image forming apparatus concerned, so as to conduct operations for controlling the image forming apparatus concerned, based on the control information acquired.
Conventionally, there has been employed such a method that the image forming apparatus and the managing apparatus are coupled to each other through a conventional telephone line network and, in response to the telephone call from the managing apparatus, the image forming apparatus notifies the managing apparatus of current statuses of its own, as the method for acquiring the control information from the image forming apparatus concerned (hereinafter, this method is referred to as a telephone-line communication method). However, as for the abovementioned method, there has been such a problem that an ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) or the like should be employed as the telephone line network, resulting in a lack of a general purpose versatility of the system.
To solve the abovementioned problem, alternatively employed is such a method that the image forming apparatus and the managing apparatus are coupled to each other through a communication network such as an Internet or the like, so that the image forming apparatus itself creates an electronic mail in which current statuses of its own are described, in response to the E-mail received from the managing apparatus, and sends the created E-mail back to the managing apparatus (hereinafter, this method is referred to as an E-mail method).
Further, recently, there have been utilized a method in which data read/write operations from/to each of the managing apparatus and the image forming apparatuses are conducted by using an HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) server, such as a Web-DAV (Distributed Authoring and Versioning protocol for the WWW) server, etc., (hereinafter, this method is referred to as an HTTP method).
With respect to the communication control of the management system in which various kinds of communication methods, as abovementioned, are employed for conducting communicating operations, for instance, Tokkai 2001-145173 sets forth a method comprising: acquiring information in regard to apparatuses constituting the network system concerned, user's statuses and outside environmental information of the apparatus concerned; and conducting various kinds of operations, such as an operation for suspending an information notification operation, an operation for changing a notification destination and/or a range of information, an operation for changing a priority of information to be notified and an operation for changing setting and notification contents.
Further, Tokkai 2005-45416 sets forth a method for selecting a communication path and/or protocol on the basis of the priority order of the communication procedures, which is determined according to the factors, such as which communication path is currently available and whether the importance priority is given to the communication cost or the transmission reliability.
In the normal management system, there has been utilized such a bilateral communication that is established by transmitting a request from the managing apparatus (host) and sending a response for the request back to the managing apparatus (host) from the image forming apparatus (device). On the other hand, when a communication method depending on the network environment, such as the E-mail method, the HTTP method, etc., is employed, depending on a presence or absence of the security policy or the POP (Post Office Protocol) server, sometimes, there has been utilized such a unilateral communication that is established only by transmitting data to the managing apparatus (host) from the image forming apparatus (device).
In this connection, since the initial sequence with the managing apparatus (host) varies depending on the communication mode, such as the bilateral or unilateral mode, the coarse or tight coupling mode, etc., the parameters to be established in advance by the user, for instance, the network parameters (such as settings of POP server, account information, etc.), the determination in regard to whether or not concerned data should be encrypted (instruction is sent from the host side in the bilateral communication mode, while instruction is sent from the device side in the unilateral communication mode), also vary depending on the communication mode currently employed.
If all of the abovementioned parameters to be established by the user are recognized in advance and are fixed over the time in the future without being changed, there would arise no major problem. However, when a change of security policy or a malfunction of the server has occurred, there arises such a problem that it becomes impossible to transmit merely a minimum required data in case that a certain communication error occurs.